Monkey See, Monkey Do? An FAQ on Intelligent Animals

Another question. I couldn't find where a CR adjustment would be for an Awakened animal. Is there an adjustment?

I asked about CR for awakened animals during the Alpha and Beta playtests for Pathfinder... no clarification in the final core rules... still none here. I'm going to go with "+1."

Personally, I do see clarification in the article - the rule now is, basically, "Yes, you can raise an animal's Int higher than 2. And here's what happens when you do..."

Which, as a mechanic, is fine.

I'm just not sure I actually like it.

This issue actually came up for me in my home Kingmaker game a couple of weeks ago, as the druid's cat companion went up to 4 HD. He wanted to put a point into Intelligence, and I had to go back and forth between the rules to figure out if he could do it.

Honestly, to me it seems incongruous with the rest of the setting "reality" (such as it is) to allow a non-magical beast-animal an Intelligence higher than 2. I ultimately ruled he couldn't put it into Int. (Which is funny, I'm perfectly okay with awakened animals - it's not the concept of intelligent animals that bothers me, simply the mechanics of it don't cohere well for me.) While this article shows that the designer's intent was clearly opposite my own logic, I'm still not sure I'm convinced by it.

At 3 INT, it's a sentient being. It's just barely a sentient being. You, as a sentient being, can learn all sorts of 'tricks' if someone takes the time to teach you.

I agree that's what common sense would dictate, but (to me) common sense dictates that a 3 Int creature wouldn't need Handle Animal at all.

The whole "all animals have Int 1-2" thing bugs me to no end. OK, so domestic cattle are incredibly stupid, I'll concede that. But chimps in captivity have been taught sign langauge, and in turn have taught their young. Yet both critters get "Int 2" on their character sheets, so to speak. An Int 3 human is a lot less intelligent (in terms of learning and problem-solving) than a chimpanzee, so by that yardstick, animals should have scores from 1 to 6 or 7, not from 1 to 2.

The whole "animal intelligence" of 2 is a sacred cow from 1e that people are unreasonably afraid to slaughter.

A lion with levels in rogue would quickly become a killing machine, I know that for a fact. Pounce + several attacks + sneak attack = bad-ass.

Wasn't there an adventure published by that-other-gaming-company that had a monk get himself polymorphed into a tiger to basically do just this?

I have had a worg NPC before with levels and it went over fine but I don't go out of my way to break anything. I can see where sadistic DM's could break it (or even at higher levels, worg rogues being ridden by goblin alchemists)

So, one of the tricky parts of doing FAQ posts like this is that I do not necessarily want to use a blog post and thread to redefine something in the rulebook. Clarify and expand on the gray areas yes, but not necessarily rewrite. For that we have updates and reprints.

There are still some unanswered questions here, and I will endeavor to answer them as best I can. Note that in many cases, this is a rare situation, and I am not going to define every last circumstance, when I can instead empower GMs to make the decisions as needed to fit their campaign (just an FYI, that is my usual stance when it comes to obscure and corner case rules).

Jason Bulmahn
Lead Designer
Paizo Publishing

That's fair, JB - thanks for the update, sir.

It was a good article, by the way - well written, and all. Didn't mean to insinuate otherwise.

The whole "animal intelligence" of 2 is a sacred cow from 1e that people are unreasonably afraid to slaughter.

Word. I'd go as high as 4 to *maybe* 6 for normal animals (chimps, dogs, dolphins) and as low as 1 for bugs, since, contrary to 'mindless,' they can be trained, exhibit emotions, use craft skills, do math, and can even have their tiny little brains impaired by drugs.

Nonabilities, like 'mindless' vermin, and 0 Con undead that have to eat, and can be stabbed through the heart, and clearly have some sort of flesh-eating metabolism going on, annoy me.

The Faq Seemed to suggest a difference between a Sentient Creature and an animal with a 3 int...I also rather agree with he Commentary on weapons. Really the PC's understanding that the giant Metal club with spikes is better and the Animal's are different...that Said, i think teaching a Gorilla to use a greatclub should be quite feasible. I think that a Halberd would be different. But i guess its all up to interpretation

An intelligence of 3 is rated as being sapient, capable of understanding language, and taking whatever feats it wants. I don't see why one bipedal creature with two thumbs would be able to figure out it should use this weapon, but another wouldn't be, especially if you trained it by giving it a feat (though, in all honesty, even without. Apes are tool-users naturally, after all...)

Maybe it would be justified to have a minimum Int rating for certain weapon proficiencies?

I have to admit I'm not crazy about the idea that a 3 Int animal still follows the Handle Animal rules. Note that it leaves some gaps in the skill description; for instance, an animal with 1 Int can learn 3 tricks and an animal with 2 Int can learn 6 tricks. An animal with 3 Int? Undefined.

Well, that solves the question of what this guy's int score is...

Heavy War Horse

According to the Bestiary, a heavy war horse is a horse with the advanced template. According to the blog, adding the advanced template does, indeed, increase an animal's intelligence. At one point it time, it was mentioned, on the forums, that since a horse is an animal, and the definition of animal is that it can only have an Int of 1 or 2, that the template wouldn't raise the horse's intelligence above that maximum.

Now, with all of that in place, it would seem that all heavy war horses are extremely intelligent animals. More so than traditionally "smart" animals like apes or dolphins.

1. Is this the intent of adding the advanced template for a heavy war horse?

2. Does this point toward what a few posters above have intimated, that somehow now the intelligence scale for animals is separate from the scale for sentient beings.

I'm really hoping 2 isn't the case. Plus I kind of wish we just had stats for a heavy war horse instead of adding the advanced template.

With regard to PFS does this mean that polearm-wielding gorilla animal companions are legal for play?

This has already been ruled on and is specifically mentioned in the current version of the Guide to Pathfinder Society Organized Play:

Can I improve my companion’s Intelligence to 3 or

higher and give it weapon feats?

Yes. Following the guidelines for animal companions as established on page 53 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook, this is legal. Your companion must be physically capable of wielding the weapon (no tigers with longswords, for example). Bear in mind, however, that an animal’s natural attacks nearly always yield better results than spending feat slots and gold pieces to equip your companion.

Jason's post pretty clearly says that animal companions can wield weapons, but that the GM should feel free to limit this option if he feels it goes against the feel of his campaign.

Any change to the above, at this point, would actually be a change from the official ruling that has already been rendered, quite a while ago.

The whole "all animals have Int 1-2" thing bugs me to no end. OK, so domestic cattle are incredibly stupid, I'll concede that. But chimps in captivity have been taught sign langauge, and in turn have taught their young. Yet both critters get "Int 2" on their character sheets, so to speak. An Int 3 human is a lot less intelligent (in terms of learning and problem-solving) than a chimpanzee, so by that yardstick, animals should have scores from 1 to 6 or 7, not from 1 to 2.

This is a minor point, but just to be clear (because there's a lot of confusion about this), while some chimpanzees have proven capable of uttering individual signs in more or less appropriate contexts, they haven't really learned a sign language—a typical utterance is along the lines of "ME ME BANANA ME BANANA BANANA ME ME ME," with none of the grammatical structures associated with human sign languages. They plateau at maybe the level of a 1.5-yr-old human? (Not sure what Int score that equates to—though one would also need to take their problem-solving abilities into account.)

I mean this in the most respectful way possible, but if you still have to "handle" an animal with an intelligence above 2, I'm not sure that the benefit to allowing an animal to increase its intelligence is great enough to overcome the confusion created by this.

Seems like things were a lot simpler when "all animals have an int that caps at 2, and if its ever higher then 2, they are sentient beings and become magical beasts."

The whole "all animals have Int 1-2" thing bugs me to no end. OK, so domestic cattle are incredibly stupid, I'll concede that. But chimps in captivity have been taught sign langauge, and in turn have taught their young. Yet both critters get "Int 2" on their character sheets, so to speak. An Int 3 human is a lot less intelligent (in terms of learning and problem-solving) than a chimpanzee, so by that yardstick, animals should have scores from 1 to 6 or 7, not from 1 to 2.

The whole "animal intelligence" of 2 is a sacred cow from 1e that people are unreasonably afraid to slaughter.

+1.

Int 1-2 is fine as a baseline for many animals, such as cows, sheep, fish, deer, rabbits, etc., etc. But many animals display intelligence and abilities that argue for higher Int scores. Examples that spring to mind include canines (domestic and wild), dolphins and whales, crows and ravens, apes and monkeys, felines (domestic and wild), and horses. Of course, animal intelligence is debatable and real world research on the subject is on-going.

While an set of optional rules that reflect higher intelligence animals would be cool, it's highly unlikely we'll ever see anything along those lines.

Int 1-2 is fine as a baseline for many animals, such as cows, sheep, fish, deer, rabbits, etc., etc. But many animals display intelligence and abilities that argue for higher Int scores. Examples that spring to mind include canines (domestic and wild), dolphins and whales, crows and ravens, apes and monkeys, felines (domestic and wild), and horses. Of course, animal intelligence is debatable and real world research on the subject is on-going.

While an set of optional rules that reflect higher intelligence animals would be cool, it's highly unlikely we'll ever see anything along those lines.

While 2 was always the "peak" of animal intelligence, at least some older editions had the "buffer" zone of (3-4) as "semi" intelligent, which was probably a good zone for high functioning animals, and 5 was the lowest Intelligence that a PC race would have.

This is a minor point, but just to be clear (because there's a lot of confusion about this), while some chimpanzees have proven capable of uttering individual signs in more or less appropriate contexts, they haven't really learned a sign language—a typical utterance is along the lines of "ME ME BANANA ME BANANA BANANA ME ME ME," with none of the grammatical structures associated with human sign languages.

There are several possibilities here; I'm unsure which is correct.

I don't know you, personally, nor Mr Fouts -- nor do I know the source of your information -- so, respectfully, I'm unable to determine which of the above is correct.

Judy Bauer wrote:

This is a minor point, but just to be clear (because there's a lot of confusion about this), while some chimpanzees have proven capable of uttering individual signs in more or less appropriate contexts, they haven't really learned a sign language—a typical utterance is along the lines of "ME ME BANANA ME BANANA BANANA ME ME ME," with none of the grammatical structures associated with human sign languages.

There are several possibilities here; I'm unsure which is correct.

Either (a) Roger Fouts is lying about his conversations with Washoe, AND, independently of that, Kanzi's use of lexographs is totally over-reported; or else
(b) Your assertion is inaccurate.

I don't know you, personally, nor Mr Fouts -- nor do I know the source of your information -- so, respectfully, I'm unable to determine which of the above is correct.

The Straight Dope had an interesting article on communicating with gorillas and other primates. I think Judy is probably referring to the case of Koko the gorilla, as linked to in the article.

The Straight Dope had an interesting article on communicating with gorillas and other primates. I think Judy is probably referring to the case of Koko the gorilla, as linked to in the article.

From what I've read, a functional age of 1 - 1.5 is about right for Koko. Genetically-speaking, chimpanzees are a lot more closely related to humans than they are to gorillas, however.

Blogs posts like this one are problematic because one can define ´FAQ´ as explanation of the rules, but one expects FAQs to still be referring to the RAW... Yet it MANY cases the RAW aren´t actually completely reliable, and really need to be Errata´d.

Ideally Paizo could ALSO update the RAW with Errata when making a FAQ post like this, so they aren´t in the position of writing FAQs for rules which also need Errata. Without Errata in those cases, Paizo is forced to either issue ´stealth errata´ which they ´call´ a FAQ that explicitly or not so explicitly bypasses the RAW (e.g. the rules for the animal type which limit them to INT 2), or accomodate the RAW that really needs to be Errata´d, and issue a FAQ treating that RAW as flawless (meaning an updated FAQ would logically be needed whenever the RAW *IS* Errata´d).

Unfortunately, issuing both at once (FAQ/Errata) conflicts with the current approach of ONLY issuing Errata all in one chunk with each printing... The rationale for I´m not really clear on. I get the feeling that Paizo is leaning towards the first option, namely issuing FAQs which actually depart from the RAW... I´m not happy with that approach because like I said, it´s actually a ´stealth Errata´ with the down-sides (compared to real Errata) of not being integrated into the RAW and being hidden away in some blog-post (besides possibly not being clear about it´s actual change from RAW, which mean readers may be able to discern RAI in the small range of examples given in the FAQ, but because RAW is still defective, how the rules apply in many other cases may very well still be very unclear, barring actual Errata to make the RAW conform to RAI). ...And that approach probably ALSO carries the downside of the second approach, namely if/when real Errata is issued, the FAQ will still likely need to be updated to correspond the new RAW. IMHO, biting the bullet and allowing Errata to be issued on a rolling basis is really the best option, less headaches for Paizo staff, and allows Errata to be produced on a consistent basis (in parallel with FAQ articles when appropriate) rather than ´crunch time´ before publishing.

Heavy war horses are not supposed to have a higher intelligence than normal war horses. When you apply the Advanced Creature template to a heavy war horse, you shouldn't adjust their Intelligence scores.

In hindsight, I suppose we probably should have just bitten the bullet and provided stats for a heavy war horse... or even better, just have one type of horse and custom build a few simple templates to turn that generic horse into things like heavy war horses, pack horses, ponies, mules, donkeys, etc. My primary goal there was to avoid having pages and pages of almost identical stat blocks (which is what happened in 3rd edition). The oversimplification, combined with poor interaction with the Core Rulebook, just kinda made things worse in another way, alas.

In any case... yeah. If you want stats for a heavy warhorse, essentially you use this variant custom template:

Heavy War Horse: This simple template can be applied to a horse or a pony to make that horse or pony into a heavy war horse or heavy pony. Increase its natural armor bonus by +2. Increase all ability scores except Intelligence by +4.

If you put a headband of Vast intelligence on your animal companion, does it gain the skill points per hit die?

this can be useful (such as to max out a creatures sneak or acrobatics) or pretty silly if the Druid's horse picks up the wizards old headband and can now give dissertations on the history of the Cheliax empire.

Heavy war horses are not supposed to have a higher intelligence than normal war horses. When you apply the Advanced Creature template to a heavy war horse, you shouldn't adjust their Intelligence scores.

In hindsight, I suppose we probably should have just bitten the bullet and provided stats for a heavy war horse... or even better, just have one type of horse and custom build a few simple templates to turn that generic horse into things like heavy war horses, pack horses, ponies, mules, donkeys, etc. My primary goal there was to avoid having pages and pages of almost identical stat blocks (which is what happened in 3rd edition). The oversimplification, combined with poor interaction with the Core Rulebook, just kinda made things worse in another way, alas.

In any case... yeah. If you want stats for a heavy warhorse, essentially you use this variant custom template:

Heavy War Horse: This simple template can be applied to a horse or a pony to make that horse or pony into a heavy war horse or heavy pony. Increase its natural armor bonus by +2. Increase all ability scores except Intelligence by +4.

Thank you for the reply James, and I'm sorry to be a pain. I know I could have ruled on it in my games, but I'd rather be clear on what the base is so I know if I even have to deviate from it.

In any event, I do appreciate the post and the time you take to keep an eye on things like this.

If your animal increased its intelligence by 1 would it know 3 extra tricks?

Teach an Animal a Trick: You can teach an animal a specific trick with 1 week of work and a successful Handle Animal check against the indicated DC. An animal with an Intelligence score of 1 can learn a maximum of three tricks, while an animal with an Intelligence score of 2 can learn a maximum of six trick

It doesn't say what would happen if the animal has a three inteligence, but it seems animals get 3 tricks per point of intelligence.

hogarth wrote:

The Straight Dope had an interesting article on communicating with gorillas and other primates. I think Judy is probably referring to the case of Koko the gorilla, as linked to in the article.

From what I've read, a functional age of 1 - 1.5 is about right for Koko. Genetically-speaking, chimpanzees are a lot more closely related to humans than they are to gorillas, however.

interestingly genetics may not be as important to intelligence as much as "nurturing" is. Now in THIS case by nurturing I specifically mean breeding. :) lol

Dogs generally understand more words than chimpanzees and orangutans. They also look to humans for visual clues while chimps and 'tangs do not.

This "intelligence" is in large part due to the close contact with humans and the breeding humans have undertaken to create companion animals. Genetic studies have shown that dogs have been human companions for nearly 100,000 years. That is a long time for an animal to get to know humans. A long time for an animal to increase its own intelligence even as humans have increased theirs. An adult dog is is sometimes considered more intelligent than a toddler human.

Now the scientific jury is out on dog intelligence, but as a dog owner I definitely believe that dogs are PROBABLY smarter than most humans, and CERTAINLY smarter than all elves. :)

If your animal increased its intelligence by 1 would it know 3 extra tricks?

Teach an Animal a Trick: You can teach an animal a specific trick with 1 week of work and a successful Handle Animal check against the indicated DC. An animal with an Intelligence score of 1 can learn a maximum of three tricks, while an animal with an Intelligence score of 2 can learn a maximum of six trick

It doesn't say what would happen if the animal has a three inteligence, but it seems animals get 3 tricks per point of intelligence.

does that mean an average adult human can learn 30 tricks?

I prefer to take limits off and let individual GMs decide based upon their own adventure's needs.

Kirth Gersen wrote:

The whole "all animals have Int 1-2" thing bugs me to no end. OK, so domestic cattle are incredibly stupid, I'll concede that. But chimps in captivity have been taught sign langauge, and in turn have taught their young. Yet both critters get "Int 2" on their character sheets, so to speak. An Int 3 human is a lot less intelligent (in terms of learning and problem-solving) than a chimpanzee, so by that yardstick, animals should have scores from 1 to 6 or 7, not from 1 to 2.

The whole "animal intelligence" of 2 is a sacred cow from 1e that people are unreasonably afraid to slaughter.

+1.

Int 1-2 is fine as a baseline for many animals, such as cows, sheep, fish, deer, rabbits, etc., etc. But many animals display intelligence and abilities that argue for higher Int scores. Examples that spring to mind include canines (domestic and wild), dolphins and whales, crows and ravens, apes and monkeys, felines (domestic and wild), and horses. Of course, animal intelligence is debatable and real world research on the subject is on-going.

While an set of optional rules that reflect higher intelligence animals would be cool, it's highly unlikely we'll ever see anything along those lines.

while I agree in part with these ideas, I always thought that Int 3 conferred SENTIENCE rather than only intelligence. And since this is just a game rather than a scientific study of animal, human, and fantasy humanoid intelligence, mores and killing habits I for one am quite content with animals having Int 1-2.

:)

Kirth Gersen wrote:

The whole "all animals have Int 1-2" thing bugs me to no end. OK, so domestic cattle are incredibly stupid, I'll concede that. But chimps in captivity have been taught sign langauge, and in turn have taught their young. Yet both critters get "Int 2" on their character sheets, so to speak. An Int 3 human is a lot less intelligent (in terms of learning and problem-solving) than a chimpanzee, so by that yardstick, animals should have scores from 1 to 6 or 7, not from 1 to 2.

The whole "animal intelligence" of 2 is a sacred cow from 1e that people are unreasonably afraid to slaughter.

+1.

Int 1-2 is fine as a baseline for many animals, such as cows, sheep, fish, deer, rabbits, etc., etc. But many animals display intelligence and abilities that argue for higher Int scores. Examples that spring to mind include canines (domestic and wild), dolphins and whales, crows and ravens, apes and monkeys, felines (domestic and wild), and horses. Of course, animal intelligence is debatable and real world research on the subject is on-going.

While an set of optional rules that reflect higher intelligence animals would be cool, it's highly unlikely we'll ever see anything along those lines.

while I agree in part with these ideas, I always thought that Int 3 conferred SENTIENCE rather than only intelligence. And since this is just a game rather than a scientific study of animal, human, and fantasy humanoid intelligence, mores and killing habits I for one am quite content with animals having Int 1-2.

:)

Personally I'd solve the line between sentient being and animal not by intelligence level, but by a simple sentience yes/no line. The animal caould get more intelligent and thus increase it's learning capacity and perhaps even the ability to solve problems, but the true ability to think in more human way would be granted only by spells like Awaken, becoming familiar and so on. I'd also let the anomal roll against some DC to become sentient whenever it gains intelligence above 5 or so probably.

I'd also let the familiars keep their intellects even after the master dies, because there are only so many good familiars in the world. Whole families of intelligent cats/toads/whatever living in their abodes protected by whatever they've learned and sending their young to wizards seeking a familiar to gain experience *purrrr* :)

A lion with levels in rogue would quickly become a killing machine, I know that for a fact. Pounce + several attacks + sneak attack = bad-ass.

I like that! Now that would make a very interesting encounter for my players. Like that Tiger in Siberia that hunted the hunter that shot the tiger in the first place just even more devious.

James Jacobs wrote:

A lion with levels in rogue would quickly become a killing machine, I know that for a fact. Pounce + several attacks + sneak attack = bad-ass.

I like that! Now that would make a very interesting encounter for my players. Like that Tiger in Siberia that hunted the hunter that shot the tiger in the first place just even more devious.

I was thinking of a couple of lion rangers with favored enemy (Human) instead. Ghost and the Darkness.

I mean this in the most respectful way possible, but if you still have to "handle" an animal with an intelligence above 2, I'm not sure that the benefit to allowing an animal to increase its intelligence is great enough to overcome the confusion created by this.

This. This cannot be said enough. In fact, the benefit is not great enough...period. Hard Stop. Precisely what I'm saying.

And now I'll stop saying it and let Jason do his thing :-)

while I agree in part with these ideas, I always thought that Int 3 conferred SENTIENCE rather than only intelligence.

If you define "sentience" as "humanity," then of course Int 3 would be a magic cutoff. If "sentience" is instead a recognizable self-image, then a number of animals qualify as well.

Heavy war horses are not supposed to have a higher intelligence than normal war horses. When you apply the Advanced Creature template to a heavy war horse, you shouldn't adjust their Intelligence scores.

In hindsight, I suppose we probably should have just bitten the bullet and provided stats for a heavy war horse... or even better, just have one type of horse and custom build a few simple templates to turn that generic horse into things like heavy war horses, pack horses, ponies, mules, donkeys, etc. My primary goal there was to avoid having pages and pages of almost identical stat blocks (which is what happened in 3rd edition). The oversimplification, combined with poor interaction with the Core Rulebook, just kinda made things worse in another way, alas.

In any case... yeah. If you want stats for a heavy warhorse, essentially you use this variant custom template:

Heavy War Horse: This simple template can be applied to a horse or a pony to make that horse or pony into a heavy war horse or heavy pony. Increase its natural armor bonus by +2. Increase all ability scores except Intelligence by +4. When you apply the Advanced Creature template to a heavy war horse, you shouldn't adjust their Intelligence scores.

Now, what James says makes sense to me:

However, this seems to contradict what Jason is saying above:
"There are many ways an animal can gain intelligence. It can gain hit dice and apply its ability score boost to Int. It can gain the advanced simple template."

So, my question is: does the simple template increase an animals INT score or not?

Also, are we really going to now have 2 kinds of INT score? A horse with an INT of 5 is not the same as a human with an INT of 5? This seems like a slippery slope. Ability scores need to mean the samething, regardless of who has that score. Is a hill giant with a STR of 22 stronger than a human with aS TR of 22?

I hope this gets re thought a bit. The INT 2 cap for normal animals should remain in my opinion. OR, if the 'normal animals can now have INT score higher than 2' must remain as the new rule, then we really can't have one ability score meaning something different depending on the individual species.

James Jacobs wrote:

Heavy war horses are not supposed to have a higher intelligence than normal war horses. When you apply the Advanced Creature template to a heavy war horse, you shouldn't adjust their Intelligence scores.

In hindsight, I suppose we probably should have just bitten the bullet and provided stats for a heavy war horse... or even better, just have one type of horse and custom build a few simple templates to turn that generic horse into things like heavy war horses, pack horses, ponies, mules, donkeys, etc. My primary goal there was to avoid having pages and pages of almost identical stat blocks (which is what happened in 3rd edition). The oversimplification, combined with poor interaction with the Core Rulebook, just kinda made things worse in another way, alas.

In any case... yeah. If you want stats for a heavy warhorse, essentially you use this variant custom template:

Heavy War Horse: This simple template can be applied to a horse or a pony to make that horse or pony into a heavy war horse or heavy pony. Increase its natural armor bonus by +2. Increase all ability scores except Intelligence by +4. When you apply the Advanced Creature template to a heavy war horse, you shouldn't adjust their Intelligence scores.

Now, what James says makes sense to me:

"Heavy War Horse: This simple template ... increase its natural armor bonus by +2. Increase all ability scores except Intelligence by +4. When you apply the Advanced Creature template to a heavy war horse, you shouldn't adjust their Intelligence scores."

However, this seems to contradict what Jason is saying above:
"There are many ways an animal can gain intelligence. It can gain hit dice and apply its ability score boost to Int. It can gain the advanced simple template."

So, my question is: does the simple template increase an animals INT score or not?

Also, are we really going to now have 2 kinds of INT score? A horse with an INT of 5 is not the same as a human with an INT of 5? This seems...

That's exactly what I said! That one needs clarification.

stuff...

Holy crap, a talking monkey! I guess this settles the debate about whether or not an animal can gain intelligence by being advanced simple.

:)

seems to me it's fine to have the template increase intelligence ifvthe gm wants it to. there are all kinds of stories where animals seem to show amazing intelligence. it doesn't matter if these stories are true or not. but representing animals such as lions that seem to out hunt the hunters is perfectly doable. while still leaving them as animals.

nathan blackmer wrote:

stuff...

Holy crap, a talking monkey! I guess this settles the debate about whether or not an animal can gain intelligence by being advanced simple.

:)

You're a jerk Ben, a dirty, damned jerk.

Seems like things were a lot simpler when "all animals have an int that caps at 2, and if its ever higher then 2, they are sentient beings and become magical beasts."

This should really be the answer. The PRD has it right:

"Intelligence score of 1 or 2 (no creature with an Intelligence score of 3 or higher can be an animal)."

That's it. If an animal somehow gets an intelligence of 3+ it becomes sentient and is now a magical beast.

Intelligent horse = unicorn or pegasus
Intelligent wolf = worg
Intelligent giant squid = kraken

You're a jerk Ben, a dirty, damned jerk.

I resemble that remark!

{Errata and FAQ are not the same, and should not be substituted for one another.}

As one currently engaged in Quality Assurance work in my own office, I would like to add a hearty +infinity.

I constantly come up against instances where our local guidance contradicts national guidance, or the guidance of our partners, yet getting the obvious error corrected is hindered by management, who want to sit and waffle about it.

Despite having the authority, the tools, and the responsibility to change the incorrect guidance (aka 'errata the RAW') they prefer to authorise endless tests and controls on known correct procedures that ran smoothly for years, as if they were the suddenly-unearthed wild ravings of a mad hermit who had just scratched them on the wall of his cave, in his own excrement, with a stick.
Even when forced to admit our guidance is wrong, and shown how it came about (through careless cut and paste, careless confusion of similar legal terms) and shown the evidence that the correct way works better, they still drag their feet over any change to the guidance, preferring to 'clarify' the procedures (aka 'issue an FAQ') with a nod and a wink, and a secret handshake that leaves everyone more confused, especially new staff, who have to learn, then immediately unlearn everything in their induction.
Change the guidance? God, Forbid! Far better to have everyone working differently, with the Sword of Damocles hanging over them in the form of the Holy Writ of the festering pile of gobbledigook, wheeled out like a Golden Calf, for them to prance around, before punishing the staff who've been performing 100% legally and correctly.

Please do not make participating in my hobby resemble going to work.

Now, what James says makes sense to me:
"Heavy War Horse: This simple template ... increase its natural armor bonus by +2. Increase all ability scores except Intelligence by +4. When you apply the Advanced Creature template to a heavy war horse, you shouldn't adjust their Intelligence scores."
However, this seems to contradict what Jason is saying above:
"There are many ways an animal can gain intelligence. It can gain hit dice and apply its ability score boost to Int. It can gain the advanced simple template."

So, my question is: does the simple template increase an animals INT score or not?

The advanced simple template does increase an animal's Intelligence. What James said doesn't contradict that.

What he's saying is that a heavy horse shouldn't have a higher Int score than a normal horse simply because its 'heavy'. The rules used "Horse + Template = Heavy Horse" for simplicity's sake, and that ended up having unintended consequences.

So James is suggesting we use a separate template to create heavy horses. One that doesn't increase Intelligence.

That doesn't mean you can't use the advanced template on a horse to make 'a really badass horse', in which case it would have a higher Int score. Ditto for any other animal you advance that way.

I removed a personal jab.

So James is suggesting we use a separate template to create heavy horses. One that doesn't increase Intelligence.

That doesn't mean you can't use the advanced template on a horse to make 'a really badass horse', in which case it would have a higher Int score. Ditto for any other animal you advance that way.

I think Int needs to stay out of the advanced template, or rather, that there should be a 'Badass' template, that makes creatures stronger and tougher, and a 'Smartass' template, that makes a creature more intelligent, maybe sentient, and gives access to a wider variety of feats.

I'm not saying 'never the twain shall meet', but rather that you would use each one where it is appropriate, and not where it is not.

I find it bizarre that every breeder of tougher animals would come downstairs one morning to a scene from 'Animal Farm', and find himself exiled from the now-self-aware Creatures Collective Commune.

Judy Bauer wrote:

This is a minor point, but just to be clear...

There are several possibilities here; I'm unsure which is correct.

Either (a) Roger Fouts is lying about his conversations with Washoe, AND, independently of that, Kanzi's use of lexographs is totally over-reported; or else
(b) Your assertion is inaccurate.

I don't know you, personally, nor Mr Fouts -- nor do I know the source of your information -- so, respectfully, I'm unable to determine which of the above is correct.

Well, there's also possibility 3: the media reporting these results aren't distinguishing between use of words and mastery of a language's grammar. I don't think Fouts or Savage-Rumbaugh are lying (though there are rumblings about methodological problems in the ASL linguistics community); I just think they're using a different metric for describing Washoe and Kanzi's behavior.

Anyway, I'd be happy to talk more about these experiments and animal language in general, but we should probably separate that conversation from this thread to keep things here on topic. Shall we resume in, hm, maybe Off-Topic Discussions?

Does that mean an average adult human can learn 30 tricks?

Humans are humanoids, not animals, remember? That means rules for animals don't automatically also apply to humans.

voska66 wrote:

James Jacobs wrote:

A lion with levels in rogue would quickly become a killing machine, I know that for a fact. Pounce + several attacks + sneak attack = bad-ass.

I like that! Now that would make a very interesting encounter for my players. Like that Tiger in Siberia that hunted the hunter that shot the tiger in the first place just even more devious.

I was thinking of a couple of lion rangers with favored enemy (Human) instead. Ghost and the Darkness.

heh... Interesting idea. But if I were running that game, the lions would remain just lions, with Intelligence scores of 2. They'd be advanced, yes. But just lions.

(I'm not a big fan of smart animals. Nothing ruins a mediocre movie more than a talking animal.)

Simple templates, IMO, are stopgap measures meant to take up as little room as possible, and slapped on in the middle of a session with minimal fuss, and not fleshed out monster design rules that should be used for actual long-term use.

You end up with stuff like Advanced warhorses that are smarter than the party member who 'dumped' Int, Fiendish creatures that aren't evil (and yet can smite good, with the seething power of their not-evil-ness), and Giant creatures that have the same HD as their Young kin.

The templates, IMO, only work for something that's only going to exist for <3 rounds. Once you keep them around long enough to realize that the celestial animal can't understand celestial, and is incapable of actually following the orders of it's conjurer (per the spell description), their kludgey quick-fix nature tends to cause more problems than they are worth.

For anything longer-lasting, like an 'advanced warhorse' that is going to stick around, I'd use the 3.5 monster advancement rules and templates instead. (Or pillage stuff from the Advanced Bestiary or Book of Templates or some other excellent 3rd party source.)

Using HD-based advancement also makes adjudicating simulacrum easier as well. :)

Now, what James says makes sense to me:
"Heavy War Horse: This simple template ... increase its natural armor bonus by +2. Increase all ability scores except Intelligence by +4. When you apply the Advanced Creature template to a heavy war horse, you shouldn't adjust their Intelligence scores."

However, this seems to contradict what Jason is saying above:
"There are many ways an animal can gain intelligence. It can gain hit dice and apply its ability score boost to Int. It can gain the advanced simple template."

So, my question is: does the simple template increase an animals INT score or not?

Also, are we really going to now have 2 kinds of INT score? A horse with an INT of 5 is not the same as a human with an INT of 5? This seems...

No, I think what James was saying was 'mea culpa'.

They tried to avoid having a stat block for every major type of horse. They then created some problems, since you need heavy war horse. So they tried to fix it by saying 'Use the advanced template', but that boosted INT.

What he's saying is they should (and probably will) have to have at least an entry for each type of major variation. Thus, his example is, for a Heavy War-Horse template, the template would be : Use the advanced Simple Template, but don't increase the INT. That's a one line entry.